Dissociation in Borderline Personality Disorder

What is dissociation, which forms exist and what are the implications for borderline personality disorder sufferers?

Borderline personality disorder, commonly referred to as BPD, involves a wide variety of different symptoms including the following: impulsivity, fears of abandonment, explosive emotions, roller coaster emotions, self-harm, feelings of emptiness and dissociation. There are nine identified symptoms and a person can only be diagnosed with this mental health condition if they are affected by at least five symptoms.

Dissociation and Borderline Personality Disorder

Dissociation occurs when an individual feels that he/she has lost touch with reality. This can be extremely frightening for those affected. It is recognised to a very common factor in terms of those suffering from BPD.
While much still remains unknown about this symptom, many health professionals working in the mental health field believe that a person may experience dissociation as a means pf coping with extreme stress or trauma. An example of disassociation is when a rape victim denies what has happened as an subconscious means of protecting the mind.

There are four main types of dissociation including: dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder, dissociative amnesia and depersonalisation disorder.

What is Dissociative Fugue?

Those affected with dissociative fugue will disconnect from the past and typically fail to remember large periods of time that are associated with certain past experiences. The condition is not easily identifiable, as the individual will appear perfectly normal to others, providing the other person doesn't have knowledge about the affected individual's past.
Many sufferers will travel around and adopt a new form of self, thereby causing much distress to those left behind at home.

What is Dissociative Identity Disorder?

This condition was previously known as multiple personality disorder and involves the individual adopting at least two totally different personalities. Some health professionals have worked with those who adopt as many as fifteen different personalities.

Each individual personality may be used to cope with different forms of stress and will typically involve changes in vocabulary, accent, posture and it may even involve other significant changes, like a switch from being left-handed to right-handed.

What is Dissociative Amnesia?

Dissociative amnesia usually impacts those who have experienced significant trauma or abuse and involves the individual forgetting whole chunks of the past.
In psychotherapy, sufferers may also actively attempt, for example, i to stop the therapist from realising that painful memories have been blocked out.

What is Depersonalisation Disorder?

This condition will make the sufferer actually feel as if they are watching a film of their life and as if they are completely on the outside and disconnected. Those affected by depersonalisation have described this disorder in therapy as feeling in an almost dream-like state.
As clearly recognised above, BPD sufferers may experience several different forms of dissociation. Therefore, it is important for both those directly and indirectly affected by such symptoms to be educated on how to effectively manage these disorders.

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